Email marketing conferences and summits

You might think that you know just about everything you need to know about email marketing. All you have to do is put together a visually appealing message with a concise but compelling text, send it to your database and then wait for the response. I mean, you learned how to do it a few years ago so you know all you need to know, right?

(Internet BETA Conference fot. Blue Cherry Studio)

What’s new, what’s better and what’s next

You are wrong if you are still planning, designing and sending email campaigns today in the same way that you did just a couple of years ago then you have fallen behind the times. The development of email marketing campaigns didn’t stop the day after you learned how to do it and the industry is constantly evolving. In this world, two years ago may as well be twenty years ago. Email marketing has to constantly adapt to business, technological and social landscapes that are in a permanent state of change.

One of the things that helps to solve these challenges and influences the future direction of email marketing is the multitude of conferences and summits that are organized all over the globe every year. These meetings bring together expert speakers on the subject, marketing executives, industry insiders and plenty of eager marketers looking for insights into how they can take lessons from the conference back to their offices with them.

Conferences and other kinds of meetings serve as a forum for announcing and discussing everything that’s new and innovative in the neverending task of making sure that the potential of email marketing is being fully realized. Anyone involved with technology or consumer trends knows that keeping current is vital and email marketing lies exactly where these two fields overlap. If you’re not keeping up, you are definitely falling behind.

(Internet BETA Conference fot. Blue Cherry Studio)

What conferences can do for you

As I said, no aspect of email marketing is set in stone. Integrating email with social media channels, the growing dominance of mobile devices, coding emails, database integrity and a thousand other aspects of email marketing are discussed at these meetings.

Even the most experienced email marketer can benefit from the presentations and discussions at these events. You can too, either in person or by investigating the subjects presented on your own time online.

The agendas of email marketing conferences are a kind of preview of the challenges and opportunities that you will be presented with the coming months. It’s easy for you to keep track of upcoming events in order to get a head start on what other marketers who aren’t paying attention will have to learn later. Use this to your advantage! Here’s just a few reasons to take part in a conference:

you can keep up to date with trends

you can share your experience with others and learn theirs

you can get inspired to put what you’ve learned into practice in your own office

you can see what you’re doing that needs to be changed

it’s a great chance to network with others in your field etc

(Internet BETA Conference fot. Blue Cherry Studio)

The biggest annual events on the email conference calendar

To see the kinds of topics and speakers you can expect at an email conference, and the kind of knowledge you can expect to take away from them, have a look at these:

Obviously cost, time and travel considerations mean that you may not be able to see every email marketing conference that you would like to, but there are more of them than you might be aware of. In fact, there’s an excellent chance that there will soon be one within a reasonable distance from you in the near future. A simple internet search is enough to find out what kind of events you may be able to attend and - who knows? - you just might find yourself taking your own notes on the future of email at an email marketing summit soon.

Co-Founder and CEO of FreshMail and winner of the Golden Arrow and Mixx awards.

He is also a member of the Direct Marketing Association and head of the email marketing working group at IAB as well as the author of the best-selling book "A Fresh Approach to Email Marketing" and many other publications, surveys and industry reports.